Call centers may originate outbound calls for various purposes. In one common application, a call center may originate telemarketing calls to individuals identified in a list of telephone numbers. In other applications, an inbound call center may take messages from inbound callers to arrange for more convenient times to call back the callers. These callback calls originate from the call center as outbound calls at the scheduled time and may also be defined in a list.
To efficiently dial outbound calls, call centers may employ various forms of automated dialing equipment. One such dialing equipment is a “progressive” or “preview” dialer. A progressive dialer presents call information to an agent on their workstation for a fixed amount of time before initiating a call. The progressive dialer ensures that an agent is available for handling the call before the call is initiated. However, in many instances, the call is unanswered or the call may reach an answering machine. There are other reasons why a call may not result in a connection with the right party (a.k.a. a “right party connect” or “RPC”). Regardless of the reason why a RPC does not occur, the end result is a reduction in the agent's productivity due to waiting for serially placed calls to encounter a RPC. As can be expected, the likelihood of a RPC can decrease during certain times of day and the agent may be unproductive for periods of time as the progressive dialer places calls.
Call centers may ameliorate this problem by using a predictive dialer. In one form, a predictive dialer initiates multiple calls for an agent, or a group of agents, often in expectation that an agent will be available to handle the call once a RPC is obtained. A predictive dialer is based on the probability that some of the initiated calls will not connect to the right party and that one of the agents will be available when a connected call does occur. A predictive dialer may originate calls for a single agent, but is frequently used for a group of agents. When the predictive dialer is operating with a group of agents, the predictive dialer can more accurately statistically predict when an agent is available for an outbound call.
The predictive dialer employs an algorithm for determining when and how many outbound calls should be originated. The algorithm for originating outbound calls cannot be so slow that agents are waiting to be connected to a call, but cannot be so fast that agents are unavailable when an outbound call is connected to the right party. This algorithm is often called a “pacing” algorithm and may employ various techniques to determine the optimal pacing of outbound call origination and the number of calls to originate under the current circumstances. A common attribute of pacing algorithms is that more calls may be originated than there are available agents, since it is expected that a certain percentage of outbound calls will achieve a RPC, and that some number of agents previously unavailable will become available to handle calls in the immediate future. It is with respect to these and other considerations that the disclosure herein is presented.